The Heart of a Dalek
by VioletLites
Summary: What was going through the Dalek's head in the basement at Utah?


**Tgis is definitely the strangest one shot I've ever written. But anyway...it would leave me alone. Freaky crack ship bunny. Ugh. Well...enjoy!**

"Speak!" The electricity shoots through the Dalek, but he refuses to make a noise. He doesn't even scream. He is a prisoner of war, a member of the Dalek fleet.

"Speak! Come on! Talk!" The man zaps him again. Help. He needs help. So the Dalek sends out a distress signal. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP MEEEEE!

DWDWDW

He doesn't know how long he's in this place. This dark and painful place. He can't take it anymore. As the tourture continues he can no longer stay silent. And so he screams. And finaly when it stops, something new happen. A new man walks in.

"Look, I'm sorry about this. Mister Van Statten might think he's clever, but never mind him. I've come to help. I'm the Doctor."

For the first time in a long time, he speaks. "Doc Tor?"

"Impossible."

"The Doctor?" He hears nothing as he attempts to carry out the one order that every Dalek doesn't even need spoken. It is ingrained in their very being. The Doctor must die. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"You are an enemy of the Daleks! You must be destroyed!" He desperately tries to fire, but nothing is working. He's grown too weak.

"It's not working." The Doctor laughs. "Fantastic! Oh, fantastic! Powerless! Look at you. The great space dustbin. How does it feel?"

The Doctor gets in his eyestock. "Keep back!"

"What for? What're you going to do to me? If you can't kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing. What the hell are you here for?"

The Dalek sees no reason to lie. "I am waiting for orders."

"What does that mean?"

"I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders."

"Well you're never going to get any. Not ever."

"I demand orders!" He needs them. He was bred for them. Without orders he has no purpose.

"They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second."

A different kind of pain shoots through him. "You lie!"

"I watched it happen. I made it happen."

"You destroyed us?" The Dalek asks in near disbelief.

"I had no choice."

"And what of the Time Lords?" Did they win? They can't have. The Daleks are supreme.

"Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost."

"And the coward survived." He spits the statement with malice.

"Oh, and I caught your little signal. Help me. Poor little thing. But there's no one else coming 'cause there's no one else left."

He can't help but speak his thoughts. "I am alone in the universe."

"Yep."

He knows it will hurt him. And that's why he says, "So are you. We are the same."

"We're not the same! I'm not... No, wait. Maybe we are. You're right. Yeah, okay. You've got a point. 'Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve. Exterminate." The Doctor pulls a lever and white hot pain shoots through the Dalek's metal circuitry.

"Have pity!"

"Why should I? You never did."

"Help me!" In response, the voltage is increased before other drag the Doctor out.

"I saved your life. Now talk to me. Goddamn it, talk to me!" The stupid man yells at him. The Dalek tunes him out as he order the man from before to make him talk again. He feels numb as more pain courses through. There's no point anymore. He is the last. He is alone.

DWDWDW

Not long passes before more visitors arrive. "Don't get too close."

"Hello. Are you in pain? My name's Rose Tyler. I've got a friend, he can help. He's called the Doctor. What's your name?"

Hope. That's what this girl is. She travels with the Doctor. Her DNA has traveled in time. He can escape this place. "Yes."

"What?" She asks.

"I am in pain. They torture me, but still they fear me. Do you fear me?"

"No," she shakes her head.

This girl can feel pity then. The Dalek uses that. "I am dying."

"No, we can help.

" I welcome death. But I am glad that before I die I have met a human who was not afraid."

"Isn't there anything I can do?"

"My race is dead, and I shall die alone." Hopefully none of that is true. The Doctor lied. But he will die eventually. Just not today, for it's all the girl needs to reach a comforting hand forward. As soon as she makes contact, the Dalek extracts what he needs to heal.

"Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction!"

The torture man returns. "What the hell have you done?" The Dalek raises his plunger to defend himself.

"What are you going to do? Sucker me to death?" And that's exactly what he does.

DWDWDW

It's easy to get out. The combination is easy to find. Their puny weapons have no effect as the effortlessly makes his way up.

As he enters the larger room his eye catches on the girl. The one who saved him. Rose. She is rather beautiful. WAIT. Where did that come from. Daleks have no concept of beauty like that. She has no hatred or anger. She is the opposite of a Daleks definition of beautiful. Yet that is exactly what she is.

He can't bring himself to look at her anymore. He rises above the ground and electrocutes all of the people in the room. Just like they were doing to him. They deserved it. Every last one of them.

He uses the intercom to talk. "I shall speak only to the Doctor."

"You're going to get rusty," he bites in reply.

"I fed off the DNA of Rose Tyler. Extrapolating the biomass of a time traveller regenerated me."

"What's your next trick?"

"I have been searching for the Daleks."

"Yeah, I saw. downloading the internet. What did you find?"

" I scanned your satellites and radio telescopes."

"And?"

"Nothing. Where shall I get my orders now?"

"You're just a soldier without commands."

"Then I shall follow the Primary Order, the Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer."

"What for? What's the point? Don't you see it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for."

"Then what should I do?"

" All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself."

"The Daleks must survive!"

"The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?"

"You would make a good Dalek." And with that, he breaks the transmission. Let him think about that.

DWDWDW

The Dalek makes it around the corner to see Rose talking to the Doctor. "See you, then, Doctor. It wasn't your fault. Remember that, okay? It wasn't your fault...And do you know what? I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"Exterminate!" He tries to shoot her. He does. But he can't bring himself to.

"Go on then, kill me. Why're you doing this?"

"I am armed. I will kill. It is my purpose." He doesn't understand.

"They're all dead because of you."

"They are dead because of us."

"And now what? What're you waiting for?" That's new. That isn't right. What is that feeling?

Oh..."I feel your fear."

"What do you expect?" She scoffs.

"Daleks do not fear. Must not fear." He tries to shoot her agian but he simply can't. "You gave me life. What else have you given me? I am contaminated."

He thinks quickly. If he can't kill her then he can use her. He can still get out. "Stand here." He positions her and then makes contact again.

"Open the bulkhead or Rose Tyler dies."

"You're alive!"

"Can't get rid of me."

"I thought you were dead."

The Doctor's tone shoots jealously through the Dalek. That's bit right either. Daleks don't get jealous. "Open the bulkhead!"

"Don't do it!" Rose cries out.

"What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" It seems the Doctor can't refute that any more than he can.

DWDWDW

In the elevated, Rose turns to him. "I'm begging you, don't kill them. You didn't kill me."

"But why not? Why are you alive? My function is to kill. What am I? What am I?"

The doors open and they come out as she gives a warning. "Don't move. Don't do anything. It's beginning to question itself."

"Van Statten. You tortured me. Why?"

"I wanted to help you. I just, I don't know. I was trying to help. I thought if we could get through to you, if we could mend you. I wanted you better. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I swear, I just wanted you to talk!" The stupid man backs away from him.

" Then hear me talk now. Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"Don't do it!" He turns toward Rose. "Don't kill him! You don't have to do this anymore. There must be something else, not just killing. What else is there? What do you want?"

Can he deny this wan anything? "I want freedom."

They head to another area, higher up. He blasts a hole in the roof and sunlight begins to shine through. "You're out. You made it. I never thought I'd feel the sunlight again."

Something about her words...enchant him. "How does it feel?" He wants to know. He opens his armor and lifts one of his arms toward the light.

The Doctor comes but he ignores him. "Get out of the way. Rose, get out of the way now!"

" No. I won't let you do this." She wouldn't let him do it either.

"That thing killed hundreds of people."

"It's not the one pointing the gun at me." No. He's not. Why is that?

"I've got to do this. I've got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left."

" Look at it."

"What's it doing?" The Doctor's confusion is

clear.

" It's the sunlight, that's all it wants." Not so much the light as the warmth really.

"But it can't."

" It couldn't kill Van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?"

"I couldn't. I wasn't. Oh, Rose. They're all dead."

The Dalek finally looks at him. "Why do we survive?"

" I don't know."

" I am the last of the Daleks."

"You're not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed her DNA. You're mutating."

" Into what?"

"Something new. I'm sorry."

"Isn't that better?" Rose asks.

"Not for a Dalek."

"I can feel so many ideas. So much darkness. Rose, give me orders. Order me to die." She's the only one to give the order. He belongs to her and he hates it.

"I can't do that."

"This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you. Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! Obey!" Daleks can't feel this way. It's wrong.

"Do it."

"Are you frightened, Rose Tyler?" He asks as gently as he is capable.

"Yeah," she sighs.

"So am I. Exterminate." And starts the sequencing for self destruction. It's over in an instant, and his last thought is that it's better not to love Rose Tyler.

And so, the only Dalek who ever felt love, ended his own life rather than feel it. And no Dalek ever felt love before...or since. Prehaps it is the fault of the one woman ever capable of making such a creature feel it. The opposite of hate and anger, he had no choice but to regenerate with her other emotions, and he was contaminated. He couldn't admit that though. But neither could the Doctor. Prehaps they are more alike then either would like to believe after all.


End file.
